peppy wrote:

Rekunan wrote:

Having mod multipliers for rate adjust be bracketed to 0.1x while still allowing 0.01x seems unintuitive, especially for someone new, as players won't see their score/mult increasing despite the difficulty increase, only seeing so when performing 0.1x changes.

As discussed in the meeting, if we do this, the UI/UX would ned to convey this to the user, giving them the option of raising the setting to the next bracket, or playing with the knowledge that they are in a lower bracket for multiplier.

On that note, if this takes place, would something similar occur on the pp side? I can see that being a good thing for score and pp alignment.

Sirek wrote:

However, as a member of the leaderboard farming community, I would at least want to have my scores recalculated by the replay and converted into the new scoring system, since I am one of those who has spent years grinding for thousands of top 50 leaderboard placements (and I definitely do not want the majority of them to slowly fade away).

Something like this was mentioned in the meeting, and peppy basically said it'd be too much work to recalculate everything from the replay, especially considering that they're limited to the top 1k on a map leaderboard, and that stable replays can be jank at times. I think as an alternative we should use percentages/proportions to estimate the 100's count, as it's safe to assume that if you dropped acc on x% circles, the same would apply for sliders.

As an example, on Shige's FDFD play, he achieved 5x100's. Since that map has 1646 circles and 335 sliders, that comes out to about a 5/1 circle to slider ratio, meaning we can estimate to add 1x100, to give a final recalculation of 6x100's.

To provide an equation, it would be:
Estimated acc drops = current acc drops+(current acc drops)/(circles)*(sliders)

This comes with 2 caveats. The first is that SS scores will stay as SS scores (0% acc drops on circles means estimated 0% on sliders as well), which is a good thing if anything. The second is that there could be acc drops from dropped sliderends and sliderbreaks, meaning there'd have to be some way of estimating how many dropped sliderends and sliderbreaks there were, probably through the max combo, and also borrowing the algorithm of estimated misses from the pp code.

WitherFlower wrote:

Total misscount gives far less information on combo than what it would seem like, for a simple reason : it is impossible to predict how those misses were distributed throughout the play. If I have 3 misses, I don't know if they were spread evenly, or if the player only missed a triple.

I don't see why this is a problem. Why is completely messing up a whole triple assumed to always be less of a mistake than missing randomly on 3 different jump patterns? The player really has to mess up to miss a whole triple. I don't think we should make arbitrary judgments on different kinds of misses and use that as a basis for a scoring system.

WitherFlower wrote:

It is also very hard to use misses for score calculation without making them very punitive. While testing this solution, we observed cases where a player could lose upwards of 50,000 score from a single miss, which feels very wrong in terms of player experience.

Why does it feel very wrong for misses to be punished significantly in certain cases? The player can lose way more than 50,000 score total from a single miss using combo scoring. Also, what cases?

peppy wrote:

Just to confirm you understand what you're saying: this would mean that anyone playing without classic mod into the future (ie. the default when playing on lazer) will always be at a disadvantage.

Then how about just not forcing significant difficulty changing gameplay changes on already ranked maps while playing nomod? That would resolve this dilemma.

The main changes in this category that I know of are notelock, slider ends not really mattering, and slider accuracy.

The notelock changes usually don't really change how the map is played outside of trying to pass a high star map, so it can just be a setting for player preference. It doesn't have to be part of a mod.

The changes to slider ends making them almost optional are clearly horrible for the flow of slider maps, so I assume this'll be reverted soon.

The main change is of course slider accuracy. I have never understood why slider accuracy needs to be the default.

There are thousands of ranked maps that use slider accuracy leniency as an intentional mapping tool to remove unwanted reading and accuracy difficulty spikes. Some of the times where this would be used are:

1. The first object of a map
2. The first object after a break
3. A sudden timing change
4. A very complex rhythm

This is especially the case on low star maps. Hundreds of ranked map mappers over the last 15+ years have used a slider instead of a circle in these situations on ranked maps to smooth out the difficulty since players, especially new players, shouldn't always be expected to visually read the timing of the approach circles to time something that is rhythmically unintuitive.

The reality is that the vast majority of people will never use the classic mod and new players won't understand what it is or what it does. So, if slider accuracy is forced on all already ranked maps as the default, then the VAST majority of players will be playing those thousands of maps, that use slider accuracy leniency intentionally, in an objectively worse state. Forever. This is sad to me. This will discourage new players from playing non-new maps. And worse, it will discourage mappers from mapping to complex rhythms and timings even more than they already are since they will no longer have slider accuracy leniency to use as a tool.

People often phrase forcing slider accuracy on old maps as something that has to be done for the progress of the game, but for these reasons, with how it is currently planned, I can't see it as anything other than a step backwards for the game.

My proposal is having slider accuracy be a difficulty setting like AR and OD instead of including it in the classic mod. For new maps, mappers can choose to leave slider accuracy on if it doesn't matter for their map, or they can turn it off to use a mapping tool that has been used for 15+ years. For all already ranked maps, it'll be off by default. Players can instead change it using the difficulty adjust mod. If the map has it on and the player turns it off, there will be a score penalty. If the map has it off and the player turns it on, there won't be a score bonus because it is impossible to balance, but they can still use it to practice and also for competing in different ways.

What I'm trying to say is, changing slider accuracy is changing mapping, so it should be up to the mappers how it applies to their maps by default.

(I apologize if any of this seems too strongly worded. I have thought about and debated these topics for several years now, so I have strong opinions about them. Thanks for reading.)

The changes to slider ends making them almost optional are clearly horrible for the flow of slider maps, so I assume this'll be reverted soon.

Changing slider ends to only affect accuracy solves the problem of having slider breaks a judgement that breaks gives combo but doesn't give a miss, which is super weird. (Edit: I wrote the wrong thing here.)

In the past, slider ends used to give misses in lazer. It similarly solves the problem, but after a lot of backlash slider ends were made more optional instead.

There are thousands of ranked maps that use slider accuracy leniency as an intentional mapping tool to remove unwanted reading and accuracy difficulty spikes. Some of the times where this would be used are:

1. The first object of a map
2. The first object after a break
3. A sudden timing change
4. A very complex rhythm

This is especially the case on low star maps. Hundreds of ranked map mappers over the last 15+ years have used a slider instead of a circle in these situations on ranked maps to smooth out the difficulty since players, especially new players, shouldn't always be expected to visually read the timing of the approach circles to time something that is rhythmically unintuitive.

Rhythm sense is a skill. It's difficult to accurately hit complex rhythms, which is why pp has already been going in the direction of awarding more for it.

The points you've mentioned don't apply to skilled players who know how to play complex rhythms and read approach circles. I don't think it's fair to assume that complex rhythms should be made easier to play for the sake of newer players, since you lose out on proper feedback for whether you've played played the rhythm correctly, which discourages players from improving.

This will discourage new players from playing non-new maps.

How? Wouldn't the only realistic difference in new maps be that mappers would more often consider placing a circle instead of a slider since their judgement windows would be the same?

It's not like old maps would suddenly become harder than new maps at some arbitrary point in time. Every map would use the same game mechanics, proper hit timing taken into account.

And worse, it will discourage mappers from mapping to complex rhythms and timings even more than they already are since they will no longer have slider accuracy leniency to use as a tool.

I see it as the opposite, that slider accuracy leniency discourages mappers from requiring complex rhythm skill from players. Instead of encouraging players to notice e.g. a rhythm change, lenient sliders make playing the complex rhythms optional.

I can't see why any mapper would be discouraged from mapping complex timings unless they just don't want the player to play the rhythms properly.

Walavouchey wrote:

Changing slider ends to only affect accuracy solves the problem of having slider breaks. Having a judgement that breaks combo but doesn't give a miss is super weird.

Slider ends only affect accuracy in stable too. This is unrelated to slider breaks. Missing a slider end almost gives no penalty in lazer which encourages players in competitive situations to ignore them on hard slider sections. This ruins slider maps. Also, I don't see the point in changing something after 15+ years just because it is "weird."

Rhythm sense is a skill. It's difficult to accurately hit complex rhythms

Forcing something to be more difficult doesn't always mean that it'll be better because of it.

The points you've mentioned don't apply to skilled players who know how to play complex rhythms and read approach circles.

Plenty of skilled players don't know how to read approach circles well. That's why low AR maps and maps with complex timings are so underplayed and hated by the average player. Plus, lots of people play with HD as well.

I don't think it's fair to assume that complex rhythms should be made easier to play for the sake of newer players, since you lose out on proper feedback for whether you've played played the rhythm correctly, which discourages players from improving.

Complex rhythms obviously shouldn't be forced to become easier with gameplay changes in lazer, but if a mapper intentionally made it easier so more people can enjoy their map, then why not? Why should we retroactively decide that how they made their map was wrong and should be forced to change? Not everything has to be about competition. The whole design behind most low star maps is to be much easier than it could be so new players can have a relaxing time learning the fundamentals of the game. Why should we get in the way of that?

How? Wouldn't the only realistic difference in new maps be that mappers would more often consider placing a circle instead of a slider since their judgement windows would be the same?

I didn't bring up all of the situations where someone might use slider accuracy leniency intentionally, so it is more than just that, but either way, judging by the comments on lots of maps, new players hate when they don't understand why they can't get good accuracy on a certain part of a map. Having a sudden and unwanted accuracy difficulty spike randomly due to a timing change for example will only push new players away from that map. When they realize that new maps will be easier on average due to that, they will avoid old maps in general, at least to a certain extent.

I can't see why any mapper would be discouraged from mapping complex timings unless they just don't want the player to play the rhythms properly.

osu players tend to avoid maps with complex rhythms. So, yes, tons and tons of mappers avoid complex rhythms because they want their maps to be played. This is just how things are in this game, unfortunately. If this slider accuracy change happens, then mappers and players won't suddenly just change their minds about complex rhythms, many mappers will just avoid them completely. They won't map to difficult rhythms at all. At least in stable, many mappers still map to those rhythms, even if some of them only do so using slider accuracy leniency.

Sure, this wouldn't be a catastrophic change for the game, but it would be a significant and noticeable downgrade for those who play the kinds of maps that are affected and also for the diversity of mapping styles.

Also, I should mention that I usually don't like when mappers use sliders to make a complex rhythm super easy. I like playing complex rhythms. But, I also believe in the importance of artistic preservation. So, even when I think it is a shame that a map is made rhythmically way too easy, as long as it still roughly follows the song, I am not against it being ranked because that is what the mapper intended and that is what average players enjoy. I would never agree to force thousands of ranked maps to change just because I personally disagree with some of the mapping ideas.

Slider ends only affect accuracy in stable too. This is unrelated to slider breaks.

Ah, I confused myself there. In stable, slider ends affect accuracy and combo, while in lazer they only affect accuracy (they don't give combo). (+ in both versions they affect score, but that's not relevant.)

Because in stable they don't give miss judgements even if you miss them, in lazer they were initially changed so that slider ends would give miss judgements when missed, but then they were changed again (per backlash) such that they don't give misses but also not give combo.

Plenty of skilled players don't know how to read approach circles well. That's why low AR maps and maps with complex timings are so underplayed and hated by the average player. Plus, lots of people play with HD as well.

Maybe it's time to learn? With HD, you read the fade-out timing.

While low AR is pretty niche, it has nothing to do with rhythm. Having complex rhythms be less challenging is weird for a rhythm game.

Complex rhythms obviously shouldn't be forced to become easier with gameplay changes in lazer, but if a mapper intentionally made it easier so more people can enjoy their map, then why not? Why should we retroactively decide that how they made their map was wrong and should be forced to change? Not everything has to be about competition. The whole design behind most low star maps is to be much easier than it could be so new players can have a relaxing time learning the fundamentals of the game. Why should we get in the way of that?

Slider leniency is fundamentally an unintentional game mechanic.

OD should be lowered in order to make judgements easier, not have one specific hit object be easier for no reason. Taiko and mania don't have this kind of thing either, and why would they?

Having a sudden and unwanted accuracy difficulty spike randomly due to a timing change for example will only push new players away from that map. When they realize that new maps will be easier on average due to that, they will avoid old maps in general, at least to a certain extent.

I guess people don't want to play challenging rhythms? Yeah, farm maps and the like are popular and have trivial rhythms for a reason, but why should simpler rhythms be the norm in a rhythm game anyway?

tons and tons of mappers avoid complex rhythms because they want their maps to be played. This is just how things are in this game, unfortunately. If this slider accuracy change happens, then mappers and players won't suddenly just change their minds about complex rhythms, many mappers will just avoid them completely.

Well, what's the root cause here? Maybe that pp hasn't (and still doesn't to some extent) properly award points for complex rhythms. What do you think?

I didn't bring up all of the situations where someone might use slider accuracy leniency intentionally, so it is more than just that [...]

Sure, this wouldn't be a catastrophic change for the game, but it would be a significant and noticeable downgrade for those who play the kinds of maps that are affected and also for the diversity of mapping styles.

I also believe in the importance of artistic preservation. So, even when I think it is a shame that a map is made rhythmically way too easy, as long as it still roughly follows the song, I am not against it being ranked because that is what the mapper intended and that is what average players enjoy. I would never agree to force thousands of ranked maps to change just because I personally disagree with some of the mapping ideas.

This is the kind of discussion that needs to be had, and was touched on in the discussion panel, but probably (definitely) not enough.

Will new players coming into the game via lazer toss their keyboard into the wall because they couldn't hit a slider properly? No, I highly doubt that.

Will experienced players adapt to the new game mechanics and accept that they'll need to hit sliders accurately? Maybe, but even if they don't they can still play with the Classic mod (old game mechanics).

Will mappers be frustrated that their maps will have the new game mechanics imposed on them? I have no idea.

Walavouchey wrote:

Because in stable they don't give miss judgements even if you miss them, in lazer they were initially changed so that slider ends would give miss judgements when missed, but then they were changed again (per backlash) such that they don't give misses but also not give combo.

I will continue assuming that the state of slider ends in lazer is temporary because having them not at least give 100s when missing them is disastrous for the game. Much more so than even slider accuracy.

Maybe it's time to learn? With HD, you read the fade-out timing.

Most players won't use the opportunity to learn, they will simply play fewer kinds of maps to avoid learning. Also, the number of players who can use the fade-out timing to acc complex rhythms and timings on lower AR maps with consistency is extremely low. That is a super rare skill.

Slider leniency is fundamentally an unintentional game mechanic.

In my opinion, the original intention of a game mechanic should be valued less than the long term practical utilization of said game mechanic. Should sliders have required full accuracy from the start? Probably. But, that doesn't change that players figured out how to use that design choice to make their maps more enjoyable for their target audience.

OD should be lowered in order to make judgements easier, not have one specific hit object be easier for no reason.

But, in the cases where there is a reason to make a specific hit object easier, I don't think the rest of the map should be made easier by lowering the OD just to make that one hit object manageable.

Taiko and mania don't have this kind of thing either, and why would they?

It is easier to acc taiko and mania visually than it is in standard, in most cases at least, so I don't think it is exactly the same. But, yeah, I'm not saying that how slider accuracy leniency works specifically is a mechanic that should be added to other game modes, don't worry.

Well, what's the root cause here? Maybe that pp hasn't (and still doesn't to some extent) properly award points for complex rhythms. What do you think?

In my opinion, the primary root cause for this is combo. The way combo has always been implemented in every score system and every pp system makes accuracy largely meaningless. From this, new players are taught to mostly ignore accuracy. When a map is hard to acc, for many players, it is seen as an annoyance rather than a challenge and they often blame the map and the mapper for their own lack of accuracy and reading ability. This can be seen from players of every rank range. This is ingrained into the fabric of this game mostly due to reliance on combo.

Will new players coming into the game via lazer toss their keyboard into the wall because they couldn't hit a slider properly? No, I highly doubt that.

I agree. It will be no more than an annoyance for the players that I'm talking about (with the exception of the more rare kinds of maps that would become dramatically less playable with slider accuracy, of course). But, if old maps become more annoying to the average player, then they'll be played less and less. I'd like to avoid artificially contributing to the gradual obsolescence of older maps.

I want to clarify that dropped sliderends were just moved to a different metric that you can see at the score details screen, and that there are plans to add a visual indicator for this: https://github.com/ppy/osu/issues/8700 (similar thing for sliderbreaks). I believe this serves as a better alternative than having them give 100s or 50s because we can know now that any 100s or 50s are due to hit error and not due to only hitting part of a slider.

I do not see why 100s and 50s need to only represent hit error considering that that is not how it has been for 15+ years. Creating a whole new metric for missing slider ends both inherently complicates and devalues slider ends. If something similar to what lazer has right now becomes the standard for the game, then competition on hard slider maps will be ruined since the current slider end system in lazer encourages players to play sliders incorrectly.

How does it encourage players to play them incorrectly? Dropped slider ends affect accuracy in Lazer, and consequently score. Is it the lack of a visual indication that a sliderend has been dropped? That's something I could agree on it needing.

Currently, slider ends mean almost nothing in lazer in practice. They affect accuracy only a tiny bit and accuracy itself is basically meaningless in most cases in the current lazer score system.

On maps with hard sliders, since combo is the most important thing in the score system, it doesn't make sense to even aim slider ends on certain kinds of patterns if that means making it harder to aim to the next object. So, in competitive settings, in most circumstances, it is obviously the better strategy to not play difficult sliders as they were intended to be played.

Since day one of the lazer Spotlights (the first real competition-related thing in lazer), this has been extremely bad, both in terms of competition and map appreciation. The fact that the Beatmap Spotlights are advertised as a "curation program for recommending and highlighting beatmaps for their excellent and unique gameplay and design" while those Spotlights only take place in a client and in a format that actively encourages players to play against the intended flow of those well made maps is, to me, an embarrassment for the game. If this was the case for only one or two seasons to "test it out" or whatever, that's one thing, but if slider ends don't get changed before the next Spotlight season, it'll likely have been like this for almost 3 years. That is sad.

Skipping slider ends intentionally is of course also a thing in stable, but at least it destroyed the player's acc in the process. Failing is also a risk for both stable and lazer with skipping slider ends, but it is a lot harder to fail in lazer, so even that deterrent is minimized.

I believe there could be grounds for increasing the accuracy penalty for dropped sliderends, especially since, if I'm interpreting this right, they only have a weight of 10 when Ok's (100's) have a weight of 100: https://github.com/ppy/osu/wiki/Scoring#hit-results

I will also mention though that moving sliderends to be its own metric has a major boost in the accuracy of the calculated PP value as we're now able to accurately determine the penalty level for someone only hitting part of a slider, when before we'd have to use an estimation with the accdrops and combo achieved. Same with the other new metrics: slider ticks and spinners (bonus and spin).

New metrics can be made and used in pp calculations without also making the score system worse in the process. Just keep track of missed slider ends in the background for pp calculations while still giving 100s for missing slider ends like in the stable score system. This way there is more control over pp and, at the same time, the competition on slider heavy maps isn't damaged.

Well, I also think it's useful to the player to know exactly how much hit error they had and what else they missed, instead of it being all as 100's or 50's. In fact, knowing how much slider ends and slider ticks hit would increase competition if anything.

Regardless, I do agree that the weight should be raised, either 50 or 100 sounds good, and I'll probably open a GitHub discussion for this if there isn't one already.

I just don't see the point in changing something fundamental to how the game works after 15+ years to address a problem that I've never seen anyone complain about. I've never seen a player say "I wish I knew how many of these 100s were specifically from mistiming an object."

How about instead of not giving a 100 for missing a slider end, the game could have a way for the player to find out where their 100s are from? Like a breakdown of mistakes on the results screen. The player could hover their mouse over the 100 count and see how many were from the different mistakes that a player can get a 100 from, or something like that.

This kind of thing would give the same benefits for the player without the potential of ruining a part of the game.

There would instead be the missing benefit of real-time feedback. Since slider accuracy exists, if we implement your idea, the player wouldn't know if a 100 received a slider is due to hit error or dropped sliderend. This also exists when watching a replay.
(Since slideracc is in sv2, I actually have seen complaints abt this from fellow tourney players)

I also believe doing this would take more work than how it currently is, especially considering there isn't any judgement like this right now.

The only reason it's ruining a part of the game is due to its low weighting, I'm sure once I post the discussion it'll be increased, or we'll at least understand why it's that low.

Yeah, I guess there would be benefit to tournament players to be able to know for sure if they missed a slider end without having to glance down at the UR bar... Well, as long as slider end misses are weighted the same as 100s in terms of impact on accuracy and a clear visual indicator is added, then the current problems should be mostly resolved.

EDIT: Wait, slider end misses could still give 100s and also give real-time feedback about the kind of mistake the player made by simply having multiple kinds of 100 indicators depending on the kind of mistake. Like the image for a 100 by mistiming a circle would have a different sprite than the image for a 100 from missing a slider end. Due to that potentially being an option, I still think it unnecessarily adds complexity to the game to stop using 100s for slider end misses and creating a whole new metric for it.

I think that potential option would add more complexity than how it is currently, because again, there isn't any other judgement/metric like this, meaning there'd have to be a lot of new groundwork to make it happen. Current implementation is just adding a new one, which gives lots of easy access/freedom for weighting and visual indicator.

It might be more complex from a development standpoint, but I wouldn't know much about that. However, from a player perspective, keeping everything under the current 300/100/50/miss system but with different visual indicators would be simpler to understand and use, in my opinion.

That's fair, I'm just providing a possible reason for why they chose this implementation instead of yours. I also do agree that yours would be more understandable and usable, but I think only for players migrating from stable. I'm not sure how new players would process having metrics such as dropped sliderends be a different "version" of acc drops, compared to making them their own metrics.

How about making an optional miss warning? Let’s say if a player plays a card for the second time and the last time he missed, will a message or a miss sign pop up depending on the skin? As for me, this should help in improving or farming

tbh lazers is good and all but the only thing that bothers is the sliders too fast pressing which will of course result in lower score which makes a huge gap beetwen scores because a lot of people are used to the way how the sliders work in stable and they dont have to bother of a high risk of losing points and accuracy which also make the lazer harder to play for them without classic mod which in itself reduces the score making the map rankings harder to compete. which while having a classic mod to have higher scores makes the people use mods to increase the score to be able to compete with non classic mods users in lazer. my solution would be if there wont be any change in lazer itself then to just change the classic mod value from 0.50 to 0.80/90. also i'll be glad see how it will affect the game and if the reason is to give the players new ways too play the game it is valid but as i said the balance is not the best right now.